Tuesday, April 3, 2007

"My Many Colored Days"....

...is the title of a children's book that I just love. It uses colors to symbolize the myriad of moods that we, as beings capable of complex emotional thought, experience. However, it does so in an artfully simplistic manner, that only Dr. Seuss can do, which provides the average preschooler with a visually available concept of their constantly shifting emotions.

Anyway, at the risk of being blatantly tacky, I thought I'd steal the Dr's good idea to shed some light on the latest happenings here in South Cackalackie....

Some days are yellow....particularly those in SC when the trees are flowering, which is EVERY DAMN day lately, and everything, EVERYTHING in your world is coated in a 3cm. layer of fine yellow dust that's impossible to remove without the help of some overly toxic solvent, thereby leaving the one doing the cleaning in a lurch....do I allow myself and my children to be overwhelmed by the pollen and suffer the toxic result of allergy induced sinus infections, sneezing attacks, runny noses, and swollen eyes; OR do I clean up the layer upon layer of pollen which coats every crevice and counter of my house, car, and personal being using said solvent and thereby expose myself and my family to the overly stringent toxins therein which will certainly result in sinus infections, sneezing attacks, runny noses, and swollen eyes?

Hmmm.....I'll go for the solvent and take my chances. After all, cleanliness is next to Godliness, eh?

(Side note here: I have NEVER suffered from extreme allergies in my life. Admittedly, I've had a sneezy day here or there over the years, but nothing that a good splash of cold water and strong tissue couldn't handle. Since we've been in SC for our first spring, I've woken up twice in the middle of the night, gone into the bathroom, and looked like Joe Frazier at the end of his bout with Mohammed Ali, puffy, swollen, and bruised....except I didn't win.)

Pollen = 1, Danielle = 0

Some days are green...a kind of dark and corrosive green. The kind of green that apparently folks around here have lovingly, but sarcastically, nicknamed "South Carolina" green. It's the color of the mold that has not only taken over my mother's beautiful white, wooden rocking chairs that used to add "southern charm" to her oversized white porches, but it has also begun corroding them to the point of wood chipping, paint peeling, etc. What the hell kind of place is this that it produces a mold so strong it eats through wood in a matter of weeks!?! And is that what has discolored the vinyl siding in the back of my townhome? And if so, how long is it before the stuff comes creeping through the walls like something out of a 1950's blob flick? And incidentally, isn't mold also toxic? Hmmm....I'm seeing a common thread here?

Some days are tan...and smell a bit like French Vanilla, especially when your toddler son, eager to display his newly acquired height at the kitchen table, repeatedly knocks over your one and only cup of coffee several mornings in one week. Ok. Granted, I should know better than to leave it anywhere near the edge for more than a minute, even if during that minute I'm fixing HIS breakfast. But to my credit, the last time he knocked it over onto my formerly light beigy/grey rug, he had climbed up on my chair in a matter of 15 seconds. The kid can't walk yet, but he could probably scale the house if we let him.

Coffee stains = 3, Danielle = 0

So those are the dominant colors of my life at the moment. Put them together and they create something akin to the color of....well....poop....which figures I guess since I see a lot of it in this household. Which reminds me, potty training is not going so well, but those are colors for another blog.

2 comments:

White! I woke up to white! It's April darn it. Back here in New York (not the city, but still...) it's snowing. Though by nightfall I was up to my elbows in brown. "Need a fresh Huggies in the double" brown.

Here's hoping the rest of the days this week are filled with colors of joy and laughter.